A mobile unit on the seafront near the Bab Corinthia hotel sent arcs of red tracer fire curving across the sky.

They attacked it with their mightiest war blasts, with giant bombs, with atomic engines and conductor beams that sent mighty flaming arcs ten thousand feet into the air-and vanished soundless, lightless, in the silence.

Fear sent arcs of cold down her limbs.

At the battle's edge, he arched over his own defenders and plunged into the attackers' flank, aware only then of lasguns which sent livid blue arcs leaping toward him.